Too Late For Regret: My Hidden Billionaire
For five years, Daryl suppressed his terrifying Draconian bloodline to be a devoted, stay-at-home husband to his ambitious wife, Blaire.
But on his mother's birthday, Blaire stormed in with a billionaire heir by her side, slamming a divorce agreement directly into the birthday cake.
"This marriage is a liability to my entry into high society," she declared coldly.
Her new partner mocked Daryl's mother with eviction threats, triggering a severe heart attack that sent the frail woman collapsing to the floor.
At the hospital, Blaire refused to pay the life-saving medical deposit unless Daryl gave up full custody of their five-year-old daughter.
Through the ICU intercom, she ruthlessly told his dying mother that Daryl was a worthless failure, causing the heart monitor to violently flatline.
Daryl's sanity finally snapped.
He had protected Blaire from the shadows, hiding his god-like power just to give her a normal life. How could she treat human lives like disposable assets on a balance sheet?
The dormant volcano in his chest erupted. He signed the divorce papers and shredded her five-million-dollar pity check right into her face.
"Within one year, your empire will crumble, and you will be on your knees begging," Daryl vowed.
Then, he dialed a heavily encrypted number, summoning a fleet of black-ops helicopters and the city's most dangerous underground queen to bow at his feet, leaving his ex-wife trembling in the dust.
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Chapter 3
The red light above the emergency room doors burned like a warning sign.
Daryl sat slumped on the hard plastic chair in the hallway of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. His hands rested on his knees, stained with the dried blood from his mother's cracked lips during the compressions.
Cassie huddled against his chest. She was sobbing quietly, her tiny fists gripping the fabric of his cheap shirt so tightly her knuckles were white.
A chaotic, aggressive march of footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Beatrice Doyle, Blaire's mother, led the charge. She wore an expensive mink shawl draped over her shoulders. Her husband, Preston, and her son, Jaxon, flanked her like bodyguards.
The moment Beatrice saw Daryl, her face twisted in disgust. She pulled a silk handkerchief from her purse and pressed it against her nose, as if the very air around him was contaminated.
Jaxon walked straight up to Daryl and kicked the metal trash can next to the plastic chairs. The loud crash echoed down the hall. Several nurses poked their heads out of nearby rooms, glaring at the noise.
"Nice trick," Jaxon sneered, looking down at Daryl. "Having the old lady fake a heart attack to stall the divorce. Real classy."
Daryl snapped his head up. The pure, unfiltered violence in his eyes hit Jaxon like a physical blow. Jaxon swallowed hard and instinctively took a step back, his shoulders hitting the wall.
Preston stepped forward, puffing out his chest. He adopted the tone of a corporate dictator.
"Do not try to intimidate the heir of the Doyle family with your thuggish behavior," Preston warned sternly. "The Doyle Group rings the bell at the New York Stock Exchange next month. We will not tolerate any negative PR involving a spouse."
Blaire walked down the hallway from the opposite direction. She held a fresh cup of black coffee in her hand. Her face was perfectly composed, the mask of absolute rationality firmly back in place.
Cassie saw her mother. She wriggled out of Daryl's arms and ran toward Blaire, wrapping her arms around Blaire's legs.
"Mommy, please don't let them send Grandma away," Cassie begged, tears streaming down her face.
Blaire looked down at her daughter's wet, pleading face. Her hand trembled. A single drop of hot black coffee spilled over the rim of the cup and landed on the toe of her designer heel.
For a fraction of a second, the Aethelred Method cracked. A sliver of human hesitation showed in her eyes.
Beatrice saw it instantly. She lunged forward, grabbed Cassie by the arm, and roughly shoved the child back toward Daryl.
"Think about the Montgomery family, Blaire," Beatrice hissed sharply. "Think about the billions Estevan brings to the table."
The words acted like a switch. The crack in Blaire's mind sealed shut. Her eyes turned back to stone.
She handed the coffee to her assistant and walked over to Daryl, looking down at him from her high heels.
"The resuscitation fees here are astronomical," Blaire stated, her voice flat. "Without my signature and my insurance, you cannot even afford the deposit for tonight."
Daryl let out a low, dry laugh. He looked at her, his chest rising and falling slowly.
"Are you holding my mother's life hostage to make me sign?"
Preston chimed in from the side. "It is called commercial leverage. Something a bottom-feeder like you will never understand."
The heavy doors of the emergency room pushed open. The attending physician walked out, his face grim, scanning the hallway for family.
"Marlene Bush is stabilized, but she suffered a severe panic-induced cardiac event," the doctor announced. "She needs to be moved to the ICU immediately."
The doctor handed Daryl a long, printed estimate. The total at the bottom was hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Daryl glanced at the numbers, his expression unchanging. He had a supplementary credit card from Blaire in his wallet, but using it meant accepting her twisted charity. More importantly, he possessed his own hidden resources that could buy this entire hospital in a heartbeat. He refused to bend his spine for her manipulative games.
Jaxon whistled loudly. He crossed his arms, a sickening grin on his face, waiting for Daryl to break down and beg.
Daryl did not even look at the paper again. He kept his eyes locked on Blaire. The look he gave her was completely devoid of anger. It was just an endless, freezing void of absolute disappointment.
Daryl stood up. He gently pushed Cassie toward a passing nurse. "Watch her for one minute, please."
He walked right up to Blaire. He stopped so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Daryl leaned in. His voice was a deadly whisper, meant only for her ears.
"Your commercial empire," Daryl said, the words vibrating in his chest, "is nothing but a pile of trash I can crush whenever I want."
Blaire felt a sharp prick of unease at the absolute dominance in his tone. She quickly pushed the feeling down, convincing herself it was just the pathetic bluff of a desperate man.
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8.3
Ayleen Ramirez sat in the sterile Hope Hill Fertility Clinic, her heart shattering as Dr. Finch delivered the crushing news: her third IVF cycle had failed.
Eavesdropping outside a supply closet, she overheard her husband Don on the phone, laughing cruelly. "She's a defective incubator," he sneered to his mistress Alessandra. "I never used my sperm—just cheap bank donation. No trailer trash carries a Bradley heir."
Betrayed, Ayleen confronted him, but her adoptive family ambushed her at home. Her parents and brother sided with Alessandra, now pregnant by Don, demanding Ayleen sign divorce papers to secure family investments. "You're an embarrassment," her mother snapped, threatening to cut her trust fund. Ayleen tossed back their heirloom necklace and walked out.
She stormed the Bradley mansion, slapped divorce papers on Don, packed her bags amid his aunt's insults, and fled into the night.
Drunk in a trendy bar, she stumbled into a powerful stranger—Burdette Guerrero—spilling whiskey on his crotch, then accidentally grabbed a napkin to his trousers. He shoved her away in rage.
Worse, she mistook his penthouse suite for her hotel room, bursting in on his shower, smashing a mirror in panic. He pinned her to the wall, snarling accusations.
How did this arrogant man know her name? Why demand she sign a mysterious contract at 9 a.m.? Devastated and clueless she's actually pregnant—with his stolen heir—Ayleen sobbed alone, the world crumbling.
The next morning, she straightened her spine in the Grand Guerrero lobby, ready to face him and demand answers—no matter the cost.
7.8
Helen was finally brought back to the luxurious Gallagher estate as their long-lost blood relative.
But her new family didn't welcome her; they looked at her with undisguised disgust.
The matriarch mocked her stench of poverty, while her step-sister Candice treated her like a feral animal. The patriarch, Fredy—who had built his empire by betraying Helen's mother—tried to break her spirit. He blackmailed Helen into attending a high-society gala by threatening to cut off her grandmother's medical funds.
At the gala, Candice squeezed into a diamond-encrusted gown, desperate to seduce the guest of honor, Damian Montgomery. Damian was the most powerful man in New York, and he was currently tearing the city apart looking for a mysterious woman named Jane.
Overhearing this, a sick, greedy smile spread across Candice's face. She planned to impersonate Jane to claim Damian's wealth and completely crush Helen under her heel.
"Hide in the corner tonight. Don't you dare try to speak to anyone important!"
They all thought Helen was just a helpless, uncultured country girl they could easily manipulate and step on to secure their stolen legacy.
What they didn't know was that Helen was the real Jane. She was the lethal shadow who had saved Damian in the woods, shattered his grip, and robbed his highly guarded vault just the night before.
Helen calmly adjusted her simple black dress and stepped into the ballroom, ready to tear their stolen world apart.
7.2
Five years ago, I, Claire Parker, ran away for love with Daniel Carter, the broke boy everyone looked down on. But on the very day we were supposed to leave together, he abandoned me.
Overnight, I became the laughingstock of the entire city and was forced into a marriage alliance with a terminally ill man, Ryan Cooper.
Five years later, my husband died, the marriage arrangement fell apart, and the Cooper family threw me out without a shred of mercy.
Meanwhile, Daniel, the man everyone once sneered at, returned home in glory and became the hottest rising name in the business world.
And somehow, he ended up becoming my boss.
I wanted nothing to do with him, yet he kept closing in on me, cornering me with sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood.
Then one day, Daniel caught me on a date with another man.
His eyes reddened instantly as he pinned me against the wall. "Claire... are you abandoning me again?"
7.5
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."
7.7
Jaclyn woke up in the sterile hospital room after falling down the stairs. The nurse delivered the devastating news: she had bled heavily and lost her baby.
But before she could even cry, her trusted cousins, Katelyn and Cherri, locked the door and revealed the horrifying truth.
"It wasn't an accident," Katelyn smirked, pinning Jaclyn's arm down. "The lubricant on the top step was a very deliberate choice."
They needed her broken and unstable. They had forged her signature, draining her massive trust fund to save their uncle's bankrupt business.
What shattered Jaclyn's world was the fresh hickey on Cherri's neck. Her lover, Bradford, had helped plan the entire murder.
When Jaclyn tried to scream, they smothered her with a pillow, framing her as a lunatic having a mental breakdown.
Two weeks later, when she confronted them, Bradford violently shoved her through a second-story glass window to silence her forever.
As she fell to her death, the husband she had spent her life hating—the ruthless billionaire Gaines—burst through the doors.
He threw himself forward, his face filled with pure terror, desperately trying to catch her.
When her body hit the stone patio, Gaines fell to his knees in her blood, weeping and begging her not to close her eyes.
Until her last breath, Jaclyn was consumed by suffocating regret. Why did she trust the monsters who killed her, and hate the only man who truly loved her?
Opening her eyes again, she was back in the penthouse, exactly one month into her marriage with Gaines.
7.9
I woke up in a burning warehouse, twelve years after my supposed death. My body had been reset to its physical prime, the deep burn scar on my wrist completely gone.
Through the smoke, my eldest son, Kennard, rushed blindly into the flames. He was screaming the name of the very woman who had orchestrated this trap—Brittnie.
When I tackled him out of the way of a falling steel beam, he didn't recognize my youthful face. Instead, he pinned me to the concrete and nearly crushed my windpipe.
"How much did she pay you to carve up your face to look like a dead woman?"
He hissed the words at me, treating me like a sick corporate spy. For a decade, a bizarre narrative "script" had brainwashed my son, forcing him into pathetic devotion to Brittnie. She had drained his wealth, turned my daughter against him, and hollowed out our family empire.
Whenever Kennard tried to resist her, the mind control punished him with agonizing migraines, driving him to smash his own hands against the wall just to cope with the pain.
Hearing him quietly sobbing outside my locked door, my heart shattered. How could this invisible force torture my brilliant son and turn my family into puppets for a D-list actress?
I dragged him to the hospital for a DNA test.
When the results confirmed my maternity at 99.999%, the cold billionaire collapsed to the floor, weeping in my arms like a lost child.
I wiped his tears and smiled ruthlessly. It was time to take back my empire and burn Brittnie's life to the ground.